Sunday, August 3, 2008

Summer Vacation...Ahhhh

Summer brings such sweet and easy living and those treasured moments of relaxation. Well, those moments may seem far and few between but they are precious times to savour and hold on to as wonderful summer memories.

This summer started off a bit crazy for us as we decided to install hardwood floors on a good portion of the interior living space of our home. They look fantastic but it was far from relaxing at the time we were preparing to move all our furniture and treasures out of the space so the work could be done. Would I do it again? Yes, absolutely, because the end result was worth all the effort. After all, most good things do take effort and then you can sit back and enjoy the results.

The last week of June, we were out of our house staying at a local, "pet-friendly", hotel ~ The Homeward Suites. It worked out great for all of us and we had a kitchen, living area and separate bedroom. Our 7yr old loved it and thought it was a "great adventure"! There was a pool and ours was not open yet so the kids were thrilled to go swimming every night.

After school got out, we headed to Mashpee, Cape Cod, MA. to stay at our time-share for a week. I bought this deeded for life week from Ebay at resale for about 1/5th of the cost it would have been buying direct. I recommend time shares to everyone traveling with children because most timeshares are a pretty good size. You usually have a kitchen, living area and one,two, sometimes three bedrooms. If you can get one deeded for life at resale it is a great way to guarantee a vacation every year. Or like us, it was a great resource when we had to be out of our house.

We returned from Cape Cod and went into our home to see the beautiful floors. They looked great. Oh, before we put in the floors we also had our neighbor, Moe Matte, a local contractor, take out a wall and install a wooden banister that you see as you walk up the stairs. The entire room is much more open now and the space looks so much larger. Moe is a great contractor and didn't mind meeting my demands of putting the spindles much closer together than code. Our 18 month old, Jack, is a monkey so we wanted it to be extra safe. It also just looks great!

After taking in the new look, we realized that we had limited time to put the house back together again. We started going through all our treasures and putting everything back in place. We decided to weed through and pass on many things we just don't need anymore. Some things will be offered to friends, some items will be brought to local thrift shops and others are being put in boxes and will be donated to local charities. Passing things on or selling them is a great way to save others some money and also recycle and help save the planet. Many of our treasures have passed through other hands before we acquired them so it it is great to know someone else can enjoy these items too.

After putting our house back together, we headed on vacation. Yes, that is right, I said vacation. My husband had the week off of work and we headed to Marthas's Vineyard for a fun, relaxing, and memorable family vacation. The boys loved it. The beach was beautiful, the weather was perfect, and everyone was happy. Life is good! I will be posting a bunch of photos of our home renovations and vacation. Hope you are inspired and find some projects to conquer or ways to relax. Just enjoy the summer.

We returned home for another week and then I headed to Maine with the boys and my sister. She had rented a week, also a time share from someone selling one on Ebay, and we were lucky to be invited to join her and go on another vacation. My husband was able to join us the end of the week and he took our older son, Nicholas, fishing. We strolled the local shops in Bar Harbor, Maine and visited Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. The mountain air was refreshing. We got some rain along the way but it never stopped us. Nicholas was even courageous enough to run in against the crashing waves and 50 degree temperature of the water at Sandy Beach. He met a friend, Max, one night and we got together with him and his dad a few times during the week. They also joined Rob and Nicholas for the fishing trip. It was great to see how easily our son could make friends and enjoy other's company. The boys exchanged addresses and will hopefully become pen pals or e-mail pals.

We normally do not take so many vacations at one time. It was great but it is also even better to be home now. The house is back in order and now we are planning for a big family party at the end of August. We want to celebrate and take in those last days of summer. September will come quickly and school will be back in session before we know it. So, for now we will enjoy those pesky bugs, humid sunny days, hot nights, countless BBQ's, children screaming and laughing....ahhhh those treasured summer memories!!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have some interesting posts. I see you enjoy blogging, so do I, that's why I thought you might like to come join me at Bloggers Anonymous, the social network for bloggers! You'll definitly like it! http://bloggersanonymous.ning.com

Check out my blogs too hehe

Lalchand Khatri said...

This is really an interesting blog post....I like it, if you want home improvement mycontractoronline.com is the best....
Garage Door Repair

Silkfair said...

You haven't blogged in so long - hows your online business coming along?

We followed your blog ardently and would love for you to continue running it.

Cathy J

Jenny said...

I'm just dropping by to check out your site. It's pretty nifty. I'm gonna bookmark you and visit often, but before I go I'd like to invite you to my site for a visit. Hope to see you there.

Anonymous said...

nice and interest post! thanks for your sharing. more info at Astove